Question for those who fly big passenger ships.

[Stealthie]

In a nutshell, how do you plan voyages for multiple passengers efficiently?

The gal-map shows you the first destination on each passenger's itinerary so it's fairly simple to start off efficiently, travelling a course that passes each POI.
Trouble is, once you've taken one passenger to their first POI, their 2nd one might be somewhere in the opposite direction to where you're headed.
And you might then end up travelling hundreds of Ly in one direction, only to find that a different passenger's next POI is close to where you previously were.

I know the briefings tell you ALL of a passenger's POIs.
Does anybody go to the effort of scribbling them all down on a notepad and then consulting the gal-map to manually figure out the most efficient order to take multiple passengers around multiple POIs?

Or do people just head for whichever POI is the closest, complete each passenger's itinerary one at a time or just flat-out never take more than one group of passengers?

It'd be nice if the gal-map showed ALL of each passenger's required POI's at the same time, so you could take them around all the POIs in the most efficient route, rather than requiring you to do them in a specific order.


Also, while I'm at it, do certain systems spawn specific types of passenger mission?
Seems like, for example, it'd be sensible if you could go to a system in war, outbreak or famine and pick up a whole heap of passengers who just want a one-way trip to somewhere else.
I've only really done tourist trips for a single passenger group at a time so I haven't paid much attention to whether the game does spawn trips according to the situation in a given system.

Just occurred to me that I might be able to take my Orca to a system in war/famine/outbreak and load it up with refugees and make some coin.

 

[Crank Larson]

I just go for the closest first, and then the next closest, etc. I check all the missions for the next closest, though. This seems to work out ok, and I tend to hop between the missions. The last destination for each mission usually ends up being quite long, but never more than 10 jumps or so (45ly AspX).

EDIT: lol, didn't spot that you were using a big passenger ship. I'd be using the same method as I do for the Asp. I still haven't decided which big ship I want to buy, yet. What are you flying, and what jump range are you getting from it?

 

[IndigoWyrd]

I do scribble down where each stop is, and I try to determine the closest-to-round route I can take to cover all those locations without having to double-back on myself whenever possible. I've even picked up new passengers mid-flight to pad out my routes. It's kind of the fun part of being a space-bus driver. Well, that and flying a Beluga named "Chillin' the Most".

 

[Stealthie]

I do scribble down where each stop is, and I try to determine the closest-to-round route I can take to cover all those locations without having to double-back on myself whenever possible. I've even picked up new passengers mid-flight to pad out my routes. It's kind of the fun part of being a space-bus driver. Well, that and flying a Beluga named "Chillin' the Most".

Respect to you for having the patience to do that. [up]

I feel like I should try it but it'd be much easier if there were, perhaps, a variety of different-coloured bookmarks you could place on the gal-map for yourself.
Ideally, I could do with 3 or 4 entirely separate gal-maps; one for plotting exploration POIs, one for trading POIs, one for passenger POIs and another one for the locations of rares, upgrades, useful systems etc.
That way it'd avoid ending up with one map getting cluttered with heaps of unrelated bookmarks.

 

[Nyquistt]

Respect to you for having the patience to do that. [up]

I feel like I should try it but it'd be much easier if there were, perhaps, a variety of different-coloured bookmarks you could place on the gal-map for yourself.
Ideally, I could do with 3 or 4 entirely separate gal-maps; one for plotting exploration POIs, one for trading POIs, one for passenger POIs and another one for the locations of rares, upgrades, useful systems etc.
That way it'd avoid ending up with one map getting cluttered with heaps of unrelated bookmarks.

Well, indeed having the opportunity to give a color to placeholders would be a nice feature

 

[Tacyon]

Hmm I can see a helper app for this.

Garmin has a few GPS's where you can enter in a number of "stops" and it will route them in the most efficient route. The only thing I can see as being a PIA would be to transcribe each mission destinations into said router. Unless they were listed in the journal. Hmmmm

 

[S~P]

Why bother? By the time you've completed all the stops it would have been quicker just to do one tourist and then pickup a new one and do that.

 

[Stealthie]

Why bother? By the time you've completed all the stops it would have been quicker just to do one tourist and then pickup a new one and do that.

See, that's the thing.
Faffing around with a bunch of passengers who're determined to only let you take them to a variety of places in a specific order almost completely kills the point of actually having a large passenger ship.

If each passenger mission just created 3 (or whatever) POIs on the gal-map as soon the mission started it would, at least, give you half a chance of working through all their requests in an efficient manner.

 

[VR Murgle]

Why bother? By the time you've completed all the stops it would have been quicker just to do one tourist and then pickup a new one and do that.

Thing is, when you have a Beluga you kinda want to fill at seats...

 

[Garagiste]

Or just cram every cabin with sightseers and complete them all by visiting one very nearby beacon... [money]

 

[Stealthie]

Or just cram every cabin with sightseers and complete them all by visiting one very nearby beacon... [money]

Ooooh, tell me more.

 

[IndigoWyrd]

It's called Quince, and it's rather old news. Head out there and see for yourself. You should have it figured out in about 10 minutes, tops, and likely will be drooling from monotony in 20.

 

[Stealthie]

It's called Quince, and it's rather old news.

Ah, yes.

I spent an afternoon in Quince just before 2.3 dropped, just cos I didn't want to feel like I'd missed out.
I guess you can't fault people for doing stuff if they need the credits for something in particular but it's not exactly riveting gameplay.

 

[Garagiste]

It's called Quince, and it's rather old news. Head out there and see for yourself. You should have it figured out in about 10 minutes, tops, and likely will be drooling from monotony in 20.

It's repetitive sure, but smuggling-speed docking in a shieldless Beluga keeps the interest level up a bit.
I give myself a pat on the back if I can manage not to tag one of those great big Chavvy wings on the toastrack.

 

[Grumpy jawa]

Honest answer.. I fly out of quince to nearest tourist spot and tell my passengers "tough we are only going to this one" then return to station.

It still amazes me that my Anaconda is always full.





Sadly this makes the missions like 30mil to fly 30kly and back seem rather pointless, when I can fly in and out for 2 or 5 mil a trip. Though given I'm about to let my newbie friend get in a turret, which I know is going to cost a ton of insurance, I kinda need some fast cash lol

- - - Updated - - -

It's repetitive sure, but smuggling-speed docking in a shieldless Beluga keeps the interest level up a bit.
I give myself a pat on the back if I can manage not to tag one of those great big Chavvy wings on the toastrack.

Ran a few of these yesterday, the station never scans me, so I don't even try to sneak in now.

- - - Updated - - -

Thing is, when you have a Beluga you kinda want to fill at seats...

I'm now seeing more luxury passengers than normal, so was tempted to take out a orca, but oddly the luxury are paying less

 

[Herbrand]

You can add variety by transferring a combat ship to Quince and grabbing Massacre missions when you find many stacked up together. I grab 2 high-paying ones, then wait to see at least 8 more available and grab them all. Worked like a charm, although now the Civil War is over :/

 

[Garagiste]

Ran a few of these yesterday, the station never scans me, so I don't even try to sneak in now.

Now you mention it, I've not had a scan even start having done several. Maybe I should slow down a bit and preserve the whale's tail.

You can add variety by transferring a combat ship to Quince and grabbing Massacre missions when you find many stacked up together. I grab 2 high-paying ones, then wait to see at least 8 more available and grab them all. Worked like a charm, although now the Civil War is over :/

The civil war has been "over" at least a dozen times in the last couple of months, something always kicks it off again!

 

[goemon]

check out http://edtools.ddns.net/dist.php ... as you can delete systems from the list there, it at least tells you the distances between your waypoints.

that said, i found that more than stacking two isn't very effective.

another option is to take them from a system more on the edge of the bubble, where you only have one general direction.